So what if Bob Dylan in 2012 sounds like a cross between Louis Armstrong, Kurt Cobain and a lawnmower that refuses to start?

Dylan’s aura remains the same 50 years after the release of his self-titled debut, in which a tight-lipped tramp showed his first hints of a future icon, telling us all about “Pretty Peggy-O” and “Talkin’ New York” in a way that forced us to listen.

In 2012, you don’t shell out the dough to see Dylan play butchered versions of “Like A Rolling Stone” or “Tombstone Blues,” you pay the price to see the best songwriter of the 20th century a few hundred feet away from you tell stories that no one else can tell.